Company of the Bloody Boulder

Nentir

The Company eventually found the chamber where the priests of Yeenoghu where attempting to summon him. The Company fought valiantly but were not able to defeat the high priest in time and he summoned Yeenoghu into the prime material plane. All of a sudden the Company of the Bloody Boulder were enveloped in a cloud of darkness…

After acquiring the Bloodhorn Blade in the Hall of the Crimson Whip the party decided to go down the corridor to the next room. In that room were creepy pillars made of the twisted bodies whose souls were imprisoned in the Hall after failing the trial of Baphomet. The bone-chilling howl coming from the pillars left no doubt in their minds that this was the Hall of the Howling Pillars.

Keira took one look around the room and said “I’ll let the big boys go first.”

Eglath took that as his cue to go, pushing past her while proclaiming “Eglath huge!”

Amber, Max, and Vengorax went with Eglath, while Splug and Keira followed behind at a safe distance. Soon the group encountered some evistros, as if the pillars weren’t bad enough on their own. The evistros proved to be very strong enemies. Keira cursed as her expertly thrown daggers merely nicked one of the creatures. They also fought savagely. It wasn’t long before the boy, Nemus, was covered in blood and claw marks. Amber wished that she could get close enough to protect him, but had to settle for parrying an attack against Max, then giving the demon a savage stab with her other blade. Meanwhile, the pillars were doing damage as well as attempting to send the adventurers fleeing in terror. They didn’t realize that the goliath was not only unphased, but also a little confused by their flashing red eyes.

“Why pillars wink at Eglath? Eglath no want flirt.”

Soon after that he killed one of the demons, severing its vocal chords, not giving it the chance to let out any wretched screams or curses as it died.

Eventually they managed to kill the other demon as well, then made their way to Keira, who was in a room with a rather impressive altar, as well as another demon – a bar-lgura. Amber was in such a rush to defend the only other female in the party that she tripped, sending her swords flying. One of them flew into Eglath and even the demon held its breath waiting to see what the goliath would do. Amber let out an audible sigh of relief when her giant friend merely said “Love tap,” shrugged, and handed her back her sword. While the party was distracted by both the bar-lgura and Amber’s miss-step more demons entered the fight. The fight went well, aside from Nemus also injuring Eglath. It wasn’t long before all of the demons were taken down, save the bar-lgura leaving the altar free to be searched by Keira while the rest of the party finished off the bar-lgura.

To her disappointment there was no hoard of treasure, but the bell was there. She reached for the bell, which was covered in spikes, and strangely had no clapper.

“Well it’s not shiny, but at least it’ll be usefu—” her words were cut off as she let out a loud scream when the spikes from the bell shot into her hand, causing the clapper to appear. When the bell rang it released crimson energy, making the entire party to go into a berserk rage and tear the bar-lgura limb from limb.
With the big mean nasty guy down, Keira managed to release the bell, to be gingerly stored away until it was needed, and the party set out in search of the last piece they needed for the ritual.

The Hall of Enforced Introspection

The group of adventurers next found themselves in a room that was concealed by a large black curtain. Eglath, knowing no fear, immediately strode forward and ripped the curtain down, revealing several mirrors framed with leering bronze faces. Eglath didn’t appreciate the mirror making a face at him, so he made one back while looking into it and was teleported. After seeing that happen Max decided that it would be best if the room was checked by himself and Nemus, because it was likely that they would only teleport someone who could actually cast a reflection. His hypothesis proved correct, so they moved forward in search of Eglath, who had ended up in alone in a tight hallway with a gnoll at the end of it. They could just barely hear him shout “Eglath just kill three demons. You sure you want attack? Eglath rape you with your own spear!”

Soon Max and Nemus realized that they weren’t alone in the room. Several skeletons had entered the room while they were examining the mirrors, and if they had still possessed brains they would have wished that they hadn’t. Nemus and Max were able to do a massive amount of radiant and necrotic damage to the skeletons, even a couple of them flying. One of the flying skeletons ripped through another set of curtains and destroyed two of the mirrors. Eventually they cleared the room and found an altar with a mask of black lacquered wood resting on top of it. Not long after that, Eglath and the gnoll were teleported into the room. Keira killed it, slicing off its head to make sure no residual necrotic energy in the room would reanimate it.

The Trial of Baphomet

After finishing up in that room they decided to explore the other rooms for treasure, but all of the other doors were locked and unable to be picked or broken down. With nothing else to explore they instead saw if they could activate the runes that they had found in the other rooms. Eglath took the sword, Max took the book, Vengorax took the mask, and Nemus took the bell. The others waited outside the different rooms, trying to coordinate things so that the items were all placed inside the runes on the floor at the same time. They managed to drop them all at the same time, but still nothing happened.
They tried actually using the items next. Eglath used the sword to draw some of his own blood, Max read from the tome, Vengorax put on the mask and was surprised to see that he could see in infrared vision, and Nemus rang the bell. This method worked and caused all of the doors to open.

Unfortunately the locks on the doors weren’t the only things loosed by the ritual. Soon there were crossbow bolts flying in the room with Nemus, and a large boulder rolling along the skid marks on the floor. Vengorax ran through the western door after hearing a roar that terrified him, and was hit by the boulder. Nemus was soon hit by the crossbow bolts, but thankfully the traps in the other two rooms had been disabled earlier. There was another loud roar from the central room as the green dragon went on the prowl. With this much to deal with Keira decided to at least take out one of the traps and disabled the crossbow turrets. Nemus took out the boulder with a huge blast of energy from his goddess just as it was about to hit him. Now they thankfully only had the green dragon to deal with. It was bad enough; huge, with its fangs dripping poison.

The party fought (mostly) valiantly against the dragon and soon had it nearly dead. At that point the dragon stopped attacking and asked them to spare its life in exchange for information. After much discussion the group, some more reluctant than others, decided to take the offer. The dragon told them that nearby there was a room in where there was a gnoll, three evistros, some undead, and also a bar-lgura. There were also slaves in the room being offered in sacrifice to Yeenoghu. After giving them this information the dragon disappeared, as apparently it was just the soul of a dragon imprisoned there and no true dragon at all. This made those who had protested letting the creature live feel a bit better about it before the party set out in search of the room the dragon mentioned.

After a flash of dark-light Eglath, Vengorax, and Max found the remaining members of the party horribly wounded and unconscious on the floor, surrounded by gnoll and hyena corpses. Max quickly went to Keira to see if she had been taken by his queen or not while Vengorax went to lay hands on Nemus. Luck was with them this day as the Lady of Fate decided it was not their time.

When all were healed they began searching the rooms. Inside they found some gold and dice being used in a game of chance before the battle started and a black cloak of resistance. Under the huntmaster’s bed Keira found a small bag containing some gold and a beautiful topaz. With nothing of value left in the rooms they continued on and found themselves in a hallway containing many doors and a trail of blood flowing from one closed door, down the hall, and leading into another closed door.

As they came close to one of the doors, three spirits appeared before them. They introduced themselves as Valdrog the Brute, a human cleric of almighty Kord; Sir Terris, a dwarven paladin of eternal Pelor; and Memdara the Mystic, an elven mage. The spirits tested the company but after a long conversation and many feats of physical and mental prowess, the spirits found the heroes unworthy and mocked them as they faded away revealing very little to the adventurers.

The company began to explore the area, first finding a room with an alter to Baphomet and a trail of blood coming from the alter and out of the door. They also found a set of runes in a circle similar to the description given to them by the three spirits. Continuing on they found in another room skid marks running across the floor. In another room they found skeletons chained to the walls, not taking any chances they group bashed the skeletons into dust. In this room they found another circle leaving only two left. They then went into a room with four pools of colored liquid; one green, another red, a third blue, and finally a yellow pool, including the third circle. Max being undead and immune to poison tested the liquids finding one to be a poison and another to have no affect and a third to taste like a very sweet water, after this they decided to continue on. The fifth room they entered was filled with six statues and the final circle. Two of the six statues were destroyed while the other four were still in good condition. They then went down the hallway leading south of the room and entered a large room filled with what looked like two pools of blood and large minotaur statues.

To their surprise they blood was still in a liquid state. As they looked to the other end of the room they found on raised dais the hilt and the blade of the bloodhorn blade, this had to be the Hall of the Crimson Whip. Eglath never being the patient kind charged down into the blood towards the blade. After drinking in some of the blood Eglath quickly realized that the blood was poisonous and informed the others, but in the middle of doing this an evistro rose out of the blood and clawed into the goliath. Vengorax, Splug, and Max charged the evistro while Keira attacked from on top of the platform. Amber and Nemus took the opportunity to get the blade and hilt. Things did not go as planned. The group quickly took down the evistro and Eglath and Amber were able to get onto the center platform, but when they stepped on it the two statues came alive and began swinging their giant flails.

The first statue’s swing missed Amber but hit both Eglath and Keira. Eglath was knocked into the blood while Keira was knocked into the wall behind her, knocking her unconscious. A second evistro rose from the blood and attacked the prone Eglath. By this time Vengorax and Nemus were able to get to the first statue and began their attempt to deactivate it. After that failed they simply went with the old fashioned way and began attacking the controls. Splug and the Fluffy, his pet dire wolf, went outside the doorway with Keira and began attacking the machines from the safety of the hallway with their ranged weapons. Max and Amber went after the weapon pieces and after many trials finally were able to secure them. Eglath, with the help of the mysterious raven, finished off the remaining evistros.

After cleaning off the poisonous blood and some healing from Nemus, they went back to the room with the pools. Keira began loading up some water skins with the poison for their friend Morlax and Eglath began drinking large amounts of the blue sweet liquid. The blue liquid then began to move at the same time Eglath’s stomach became very upset. The blue liquid began to form and revealed itself to be a water elemental and quickly attacked Eglath in retaliation for him drinking a large portion of itself.

Being in its weakened state it did not last long in the onslaught from the company, but the company did not have an easy fight. The elemental quickly launched Eglath and Nemus into the green pool. Max attempted to charge it but was knocked into the wall. Max then took out Shivu who was more than happy to take down the vile element. Shivu used her special abilities and froze the elemental temporarily but it was just enough time for the group to get the upper hand and destroy it. After some healing the group then decided to head to the room to the east.

As the Company arrives at the southern door of the Horned Hold they are greeted by an Imp. “You are expected,” the Imp tells them, “Come with me.” The group follows the vile devil into a chamber filled with duergar and devils.

“Greetings,” a large and powerful duergar says to the adventurers. Two devils flank him on either side. “My name is Murkelmor and a mutual acquaintance has informed me of your coming. My lord has a proposition for you. I know you have come for the slaves and my lord is willing to have me sell them to you. My price is simple. I need you to go to the Well of Demons and eradicate the abominations there.”

“And who is this lord of yours that wishes us to do this and why?” Max asks Murkelmor. Murkelmor shows him his ring, on it is a red background inlaid with silver in the shape of an upside down triangle over a nonagon. Inside the triangle is a black upside down isosceles triangle with two upside down black obtuse triangles trailing down from the top one; the holy symbol of Asmodeus.

“The Chosen of Yeenoghu is trying to release him into this plane of existence. My lord does not wish this to happen and a few slaves are a small price to pay to have you get this done. Your choices are simple, either kill the demon worshipers and get the slaves as payment or we kill the slaves out of spite and after you have watched the last one die, then we will kill you. As you can see it is a simple choice. Plus at least devils have a since of order, demons are far too chaotic.”

Max looks over at Vengorax and whispers, “What do you think? I have no issues ridding the world of these demon worshiper,s especially if they are trying to bring a demon lord into the Vale. Plus when we are done we will just come back later after the captives are safe and kill all of these devil cultists.”

“Let’s do it,” Vengorax whispers his reply to Max. “Like you said we will save the Vale first and then we will bring these evil criminals to justice.” Vengorax looks to Murkelmor, “Fine show us where the Well of Demons is and when we come back you better have the captives ready and safe.”

“Of course,” Murkelmor replies, “the imp will guide you to the Well. Good Luck.”

The imp leads the party to the Well and leaves as soon as they arrive. When they enter the first room the columns beginn to speak to the group:

Greeting, seekers of Baphomet’s boundless glory.
Those who prove unworthy of his attention
Shall be claimed forever as his slaves.
Those who prove worthy
Shall be granted power beyond mortal reckoning.
Mask, bell, blade, and tome

Amber and Max then see movement around the columns as they are attacked by a ghoul and two chokers. Keira charges the choker on the right while Vengorax charges the one on the left. Splug on his dire wolf flanks the choker next to Keira. Then the ground rumbles as tentacles come out of the ground and attack Keira, though with her agility she was able to dodge out of the way. Max and Eglath attack the tentacled creature while Nemus and Amber attack the chokers and the Ghoul. Vengorax is able to finish his choker off quickly but the one near Splug quickly grabs hold of him and is able to use him as a body shield. Vengorax then turns and charges the ghoul, but is not quick enough to prevent it from immobilizing and then stunning Amber. With a prayer to the Platinum Dragon and his trusty sun sword Vengorax discorporates the ghoul, freeing Amber from its grasp.

Calling on the power of the Raven Queen, Eglath uses his necrotic attacks to weaken and then kill the tentacled creature. Max used this opportunity to kill the choker that had clung to Splug while it was distracted by the dire wolf.

The party then proceeds down the hall and turns into another room that is filled with a caged dire boar and four hyenas. On the other end of the room is a mass of hay bushels with gnolls behind it. Eglath charges the gnolls but while jumping over the hay he over shoots and slams face first into the stone floor on the other side. Vengorax follows suit and charges into the room planning to jump on the hay and blast the gnolls with his breath weapon, but trips and slams into the hay itself. The impact knocks his breath out, including the breath weapon. The lightning sparks the hay, igniting it. Amber, Keira, Nemus, and Splug attack the hyenas and Max charges into the gnolls (the only one successful enough to jump over the burning hay). Vengorax gets up and charges through the burning hay and attacks the gnolls as Eglath gets up, and starts carving them into bite size pieces with his great axe. The battle is quickly won on both ends of the burning hay but the smoke is starting to get to them and the two parties escape the room through the two doors next to them. Keira recognizes the dire boar as the pet of one of the people she promised to help and takes it with her.

Max, Vengorax, and Eglath find themselves in a shrine to Baphomet. In the priest quarters they find a gnoll demonic scourge and with overwhelming force take him down within a minute but not quietly enough that the two tiefling darkblades do not hear the battle. With poisoned short swords they assault the group as a barlgura demon follows on their heels. Eglath, with the help of the raven, is able to banish the barlgura into the abyss as Max and Vengorax annihilate the tieflings. The three holy men then take it upon themselves to destroy the shrine to Baphomet. On the shrine they find a book by the name of The Book of Wrath Unveiled. They guess that this might be the tome mentiond when they entered the Well and decide to take it. As they destroy the shrine another barlgura attacks them from behind. Though it stands no chance against them and is quickly sent back to the abyss.

Seeing an opportunity Demogorgon sends an emissary to assist the holy men for a price. The quasit offers to answer any three questions for a small amount of life force. Max asks for the location of the bell, mask, and blade. The quasit answers, “The Hall of Howling Pillars, the Hall of Enforced Introspection, and the Hall of the Crimson Whip, respectfully.” Then after taking the life force from the three companions it disappears back into the abyss.

Keira, Nemus, Amber, and Splug move north from the hall into the pen for the hyenas that attack them on sight, followed quickly by three gnolls. The battle starts off well for the group as Splug and Amber quickly finish off two of the four hyenas, then Keira takes down one of the three gnolls. Unfortunately Avandra is not with them as the remaining gnolls and hyenas hit them hard. Nemus is able to take down one of the last remaining hyenas but as he slices it in two with his scythe a gnoll comes in from behind and sticks him in the back with his spear, piercing his body. All seems lost to the group until a shadowy energy envelopes the gnoll and his remaining allies, sucking the life from their bodies and channeling it into the party. Nemus’ divine patron saves them.

With only two rooms left Keira snuck up to the room right next to the large chamber. Unfortunately, she tripped and banged into the door blowing their stealth. A large hobgoblin opened the door to find her and Amber standing in the doorway. After a couple of seconds confusion Keira attacked the large hobgoblin with Amber quickly attacking from the side. Splug quickly realized that if there was one secret passage into the large chamber there might be another one from the chamber into this room. The rest of the group searched the chamber, and Max was able to find the trap door with Vengorax’ help. They snuck into the room via the secret passage and took two goblins hiding in the back by surprise. Vengorax, Splug, and Eglath quickly took out one of the goblins as Max and Nemus attacked the second one. As enemies came from the rear one of the three hobgoblins charged Vengorax, but his flail simply scraped across Vengorax’ shield.

Keira and Amber were able to dispatch the hobgoblin in front of the door and move in to attack a human and a third hobgoblin that were standing near the door ready for that moment. Max and Eglath charged into the main room, Eglath attacked the last human standing between the two tables as Max attacked the human next to Keira and Amber. This human was no match for Max’ and Amber’s power and quickly fell to them.

The hobgoblin that was attacking Vengorax was knocked to the ground as the goblin killed by Eglath rose up as a zombie from the necrotic energy used by Eglath’s attack. Vengorax and the hobgoblin quickly destroyed the zombie as Nemus and Splug finished off the last remaining goblin. Keira and Amber attacked the hobgoblin, and after a few rounds of back and forth, were able to dispatch him as Vengorax, Splug, and Nemus finished off the others, leaving only a lowly human at the mercy of Eglath and Max. The two flanked him, sliced the life out of him, and ended the Bloodreavers once and for all.

With knowledge of the duergar purchase of the slaves they headed back to the Hall and the inn to recuperate and investigate. While back at the inn Rendil, the Halfling they saved from the slavers, came to them with news that, “The duergar of Clan Grimmerzhul bought a lot of provisions from Dreskin. The duergar have a trading post here in the Hall, but rumor has it that they have a fortress somewhere deeper in the Labyrinth.”

Keira then suggested that she and Splug do some digging while Eglath and Max cause a diversion. Eglath easily caused a scene big enough to bring a large crowd that made Keira and Splug invisible. Later that night Keira returned to the inn with news that the local trades alliance would very much like to see Clan Grimmerzhul removed as competition, and they would unofficially assist and award the adventurers if they could make this happen.

In the morning the companions went to the Grimmerzhul Trading Post to discover the location of the slaves. Keira tried to convince them that they were trying to purchase building material, i.e. slaves, for there benefactors. Kedhira, the duergar’s leader, was not fooled by Keira’s bluff, due to the paladin of Bahamet in the same group as her, but played along and had them join there supply train to their fortress. Along the way, Kedhira ordered her solders to attack the party. The Company was not surprised by this turn of events, and through the might of their teamwork was able to defeat the duergar. Unfortunately for them the supplies were taken by another group of duergar during the battle and they were only able to follow the tracks up a major trade junction where the tracks were confused.

The Company returned to the Trading Post, and after searching the building found a map to the Horned Hold, the fortress of the clan, and a small arcane circle. Max and Vengorax were able to figure out that it was a trans-planar communications circle. Max used the circle to contact the Raven Queen and a large, dark, shadowy figure appeared in the circle telling Max that he needed to kill all those in the Hold. Believing that this creature was a sorrowsworn working for the Lady of Fate, he took what it said as the will of fate and swore to see them all fall at his blade. While Max was communicating with the dark figure Amber studied the map and figured out the way to not only the north but also the south entrance to the hold. Armed with that knowledge the party headed out to tackle the Horned Hold.

After the battle with the gelatinous cube, the company was able to find the dwarven runes that lead them back on the trail to the Chamber of Eyes. They arrived in a hallway that ended at a balcony. To their left was a door flanked by two demon statues. The door itself had the image of a beholder on it. Beyond the door they heard the sound of two goblins talking to each other. Luckily they had Splug to translate their conversation and found that they were on guard duty and quite stupid. Keira was able to find a door at the end of the balcony while searching the area. They agreed to split the party into two; the noisy armored group would stay at the door while those that could sneak in quietly would attack from the balcony.

The plan did not go as expected, Splug made a noise while sneaking down the stairs into the goblin barracks, spooking the goblin guarding them. He fired a crossbow at Splug but missed and only hit the wall behind him. Splug threw a dagger that imbedded itself into the goblin. At this point Keira came in and stuck two daggers into the same goblin but he seemed to be made of stronger stuff than your average goblin. Max then came in charging the hardy goblin and was able to show him what the inside of a goblin looked like.

The noise from the other room had reached the group at the door. Eglath decided to open the door his own personal way, damaging it in the process. The goblin on the other end of the door was scared stiff giving Eglath the much needed time to take a swing at him. Nemus then used the powers of the shadow to weaken the goblin as Amber took a swing at the stiff goblin and Vengorax attacked the second goblin in the hallway.

By now the hobgoblin sleeping in the room that Keira, Max, and Splug were in woke with a start, and after a second of confusion attacked Max -missing by mere inches. Keira then sent a dagger into the head of the goblin at the end of the stairs, finishing him off. Max then used the powers of his goddess and grabbed hold of the hobgoblin and smashed him into the wall. Seeing an opportunity Splug ducked under a bed near the stairs and attacked the hobgoblin’s feet.

In the hallway Eglath tried to make a sweeping attack but slipped on the bloody floor and fell on top of the goblin. The other goblin took a swipe at Vengorax and hit between the two pieces of armor, biting deeply. Vengorax called upon the power of Bahamet in anger and felled the foul goblin with Amber by his side digging Retribution deep into the goblin. As Eglath stood up and went to grab the goblin under him, the party heard a maniacal laugh and the goblin vanished.

Between Keira, Max, and Splug the hobgoblin was defeated and the last of the goblins took off running. Eglath and Vengorax tried to stop him and though they took two good swings that dug deep into the goblin they were unable to. They found a magical belt on one of the corpses and Max recognized it as a belt of sacrifice which they gave to Amber.
They decided to fallow the goblin and after finding the doorway he entered Keira mentioned that she had found another door that might lead to the same room. They split up again with Eglath and the other heavily armored ones going to the door that the goblin entered while Keira and the rest went to the other door.

Eglath bashed open his door to distract those in the room as Keira silently opened the opposite door. The two duergar that were in the room blocked the doorway bottling up Eglath and the group in the hallway. Luckily the others had ranged weapons they had taken off the goblins in the other room. Vengorax tried to take out one of the duergar but fired his crossbow too soon and shot Eglath in the back. Max then snuck in from the other door and attacked from the rear. Out of another room down the hall from Max came a hobgoblin warcaster. The warcaster fired off a bolt of lightning but Max was able to dodge out of the way in time. Splug snuck in to the room and started peppering the warcaster with arrows. To protect the mage one of the duergar fell back but it was no help as Max used a gift granted to him by the Raven Queen and after killing the duergar attacking Eglath he teleported behind the warcaster and used his flaming breath to scorch both him the his duergar protector.

Nemus used his healing powers to completely heal Eglath as he passed him to attack the remaining duergar calling on the shadows to weaken him. Eglath, Vengorax, and Amber came into the room at this time and ganged up on the remaining duergar and finished him. Max used a prayer to pull the warcaster into the reach of his great sword and sent the hobgoblin on his way to the Raven Queen.

A door behind Max opened and a wounded goblin came out of the other room only to meet Max’s blade. The company then looks up to see Krand the massive hobgoblin chief and leader of the Bloodreavers come out of his quarters. Krand took one look at the battle field and fled down an adjacent corridor and through the door at the end of the hall. Max chased after him as Nemus went out the doorway Eglath broke and opened a set of double doors he hoped lead to the same room Krand entered. They did. Vengorax was right behind, but as he turned into the room standing right in front of him was a massive dire wolf. Vengorax called upon his draconic heritage and shot lightning out of his mouth and missed the dire wolf but instead hit the set of chains, electrocuting the hobgoblin who happened to be cleaning them at the time. Eglath came into the room took a look at the dire wolf and asked, “Big Wolf did you come here to die at Eglath’s hands?” Splug hearing this yelled back, “Don’t kill him I can uses him to as a mount.” Eglath shifted his great axe to the blunt side and wacked it in the head a few times knocking it out cold.

One of the two remaining hobgoblins was peppering the party with arrows and Nemus charged at him. They exchanged a few hits but the hobgoblin was no match for Nemus and it easily fell to Nemus’ advances. Krand’s sword battle with Max finally came to an end as Max’ great sword dug deep into Krand’s flesh. The last hobgoblin was no match for the rest of the party and quickly fell to Amber’s and Vengorax’ blades. Keira found a chest that she easily opened and within found much gold and a magic set of chainmail which they gave to Amber as well.

A messenger arrives at Mistwatch to deliver a request from the Bahamet chapter in the Harkenwold to Vengorax requesting his assistance in the recovery of a dozen people taken by a group of slavers known as the Bloodreavers. At the same time, Amber, a young human woman fighter, comes up to Max and requests to join the Company of the Bloody Boulder. Max tells her that he will speak with the rest of the party. When Vengorax arrives at the Sink, he finds Max and tells him about the Bloodreavers. The party agrees that they need to save the poor victims. Max takes Vengorax aside and tells him that he has had a divine revelation and he will be handing the leadership of the company to Vengorax. Vengorax accepts Amber into the company and they get ready for their long trip to Fallcrest.

En route to Fallcrest the party runs into some guards from the town, there they discover that the Lord Warden is expanding his sphere of influence to keep the monsters at bay and the citizens safe. They also find out exactly where the Thunderspire Mountain is and head towards there. After a few more days they arrive and find a very foreboding image. The entrance to a cave in the mountain was a fifty foot tall archway flanked by two towering Minotaur statues. To make things worse once they enter the archway they discover that they must go down a creepy passageway with a total of seventy-seven statues of demons holding lanterns that shed a green light on the corridor.

While wandering through the hall they hear voices in a room up ahead of them. One of the voices is definitely a slaver and the other voice appears to be his victim. The group decides to sneak up to them but when the slaver tells his victim that they could get at least ten gold for the Halfling victim, and the victim responds that he is “at least worth 20” and that he would buy himself, Eglath lets out a hearty laugh at the joke, killing their surprise.

The battle begins with Vengorax attacking the closest hobgoblin, taking a nice chunk out of him. Keira followed up by sticking two daggers into him from the hallway. The hobgobs try to gang up on Vengorax but Eglath comes in and uses his great axe to finish off the first hobgob. Splug then starts pelting the other hobgobs with his daggers from the doorway. Luckily for the party the hobgoblin warcaster has bad eye sight, because the only thing he can hit with his lightning bolt is the wooden door. When Max enters the fray he uses his goddess’s power to drag one of the hobgobs to him, giving both Vengorax and Eglath the ability to take him down. Amber then comes in swinging Vengeance and Retribution, her long sword and short sword, and attacks the strongest looking of all the hobgoblins. Unfortunately for her he is not only strong but quite agile and he is able to block or dodge away from all of her attacks. Nemus goes to help her but leaves himself open for an attack from a different hobgob but Vengorax is able to prevent this by sticking his sunsword into the armpit of the hobgob and piercing his lung and heart. The warcaster tries to take the out the cleric and uses his power to push Nemus into a wal,l knocking him to the ground.

Max tries to use a teleportation attack to get at one of the remaining hobs and the warcaster at the same time, but mutters the wrong word and ends up under a table while his great sword materializes sticking out of a barrel. Max then gets up and pushes the table into the warcaster, knocking him into Vengorax who uses his sunsword to stab him in the back. With the warcaster dead, Eglath, Max, and Vengorax finish off the other two hobgobs and rescue the Halfling who introduces himself as Randil.

Randil thanks them for their timely arrival and offers them a drink at his aunt’s inn, the Halfmoon Inn in the Seven-Pillared Hall. At the inn Randil’s aunt, Erra Halfmoon, feeds and wateres them as thanks for saving her nephew from the slavers. They inquire to the location of the Bloodreavers hide out and find it is in the Chamber of Eyes east of the Seven-Pillared Hall. In the morning they set out Gendar’s Curios and Relics after finding out that he is the person to talk to if information is what you are after.

On the way to Gendar’s they run into Brugg, the ogre in charge of security in the Hall. Brugg and Eglath have a pissing match that ends up involving the Ordinator Arcanis, one of the ruling Mages of Saruun. Max and Vengorax are able to calm things down and the Ordinator Arcanis warns them to keep their pet, Eglath, on his leash or they will regret it. They then arrive at Gendar’s and in trade for the information about the Chamber of Eyes he requests that they find an ancient skull scepter for him.

With the knowledge they head out into the labyrinth. They are able to find the runes that make the path but get lost after missing a turn and find a gelatinous cube. Max and Keira with their magic weapons go into the front and attack the cube. Vengorax tries to attack the cube with his crossbow but the memory of being inside one of them makes his hands unsteady and he is unable to hit it. Max calls upon his goddesses might and is able to hack it into small pieces with his great sword. Inside they find a magic long sword that they give to Amber and a belt pouch made out of black dragon hide that contains some gold and silver.

Introduction

The Company of the Bloody Boulder was founded by a group of 5 adventures: Alclave a dragonborn swordmage, Keira a human rogue, Maxamilian a dragonborn revenant avenger of the Raven Queen, Mikal a half-elf bard, and Sorashana a kalashtar psion. They joined forces in the town of Fallcrest to clean out the kobold infestation in Kobold Hall. After their success, they were offered a job to find a dragonologist by the name of Douven Stahl. They then set out for Winterhaven to find him. In Winterhaven they meet up with Xeria, a shifter cleric of the Raven Queen. They eventually find Douven but at the cost of Al’s and Sora’s lives. They were able to revive Sora but in a moment of confusion she accidentally destroyed the mind of the cleric that had healed her. The company realized that the closest cleric was in Fallcrest they head back with Douven in tow. When the company returned to Fallcrest, they found a cleric of Corelleon that would raise Al.

While waiting for him to be raised they were introduces to Keira’s employer Taros Melson and he sent them into the catacombs to exterminate the undead in one of the crypt areas. To get this done they convinces a gnome mage named Puck to accompany them. Unfortunately for the group they found an item called the Bone of Vecna. The Bone was focus used by Vecna to possess a person. The group did not find this out until later. After Al was revived they headed back to Winterhaven and took on the quest to seal the open portal to the shadowfell in a keep that was close by. As they got to the Ritual chamber that was being used by Kalarel, they find that it is a warzone. Their sidetrek to Fallcrest had made them too late. Kalarel had opened the portal and now the servants of Orcus and the Raven Queen were battling for control of the portal. The company arrived right as Kalarel was backing out of the room as he was trying to escape. Max and Al combined both of their breath weapons and killed Kalarel. The company then jumped into the free-for-all and assisted the servants of the Raven Queen to defeat the invading army of Orcus.

When the company returned to Winterhaven, Max had a temple built to the Raven Queen in dedication to their victory. The holy alter was brought by none other than Clarana, the Tiefling Chosen of the Raven Queen. Clarana also gave them the task to perform. They were sent to attack a group of cultists that were trying to resurrect the dead god Nurill. They were able to stop the ritual in time and prevent the sacrifice of a young boy who would be known as Nemus in a later time.

The Company meets a runner from Yevn Raeach. The runner tells them about the white dragon Khekolak attacking them from an abandoned keep. The companions attacked the dragon and defeated him and his minions. The company stayed a short while in the town to train a militia and when finished returned to Winterhaven.

Back in Winterhaven Max and Xeria start a bank as Keira, Sora, Mikal, and Al returned to Fallcrest. Nemus was sent to the temple of the Raven Queen near Winterhaven to be educated and tended to. In Fallcrest, Keira, being possessed by the bone of Vecna, pickpockets the bone onto Sora. Vecna then convinces Sora to join his cause will the price of Sora becoming the new goddess of the realm of dreams. Al reports to Allande, his commander, about all the happenings of the company. Max and Xeria meet Boran Hammersmith a trader from far away Hammerfast. He offers them a position in his caravan as guards. After getting their affairs in order in Winterhaven, Max and Xeria head off to Fallcrest. On their way there, they are attacked by a group of gnolls. Max and co. defeats them sparing the life of one of them. The gnoll see Xeria as her alpha and gladly follows her orders of returning to one of the companies bases new Winterhaven. When the caravan arrives in Fallcrest, Mikal and Keira join Max and Xeria as they head to their next destination of Winterbole to trade with the barbarians.

The caravan arrives at the barbarian lands and saves a group of hunters from an owlbear attack. They found an egg in the owlbears’ cave and store it in the bag of holding. Dumador Mythsmith decides to stay with the company as the caravan heads back to Hammerfast. The Tribe of the Raven is then attacked by a beholder. The company was able to defeat it with the timely arrival of Al, Puck, and Sora. They searched the area and found a cave they believed was belonging to the beholder and began exploring it. The company stumbled on another group of adventures who were being attacked by a purple dragon and his kobold and goblin minions. The other group is decimated except for Merc, a warforged fighter. The company also suffered a loss, Sora was killed in the battle but when the fighting stopped she rose again up again laughing maniacally and teleports away. The group continues on and finds a deepspawn, after a tough battle they are able to defeat it and find an entrance to the underdark shallows.

After a long discussion the company, with Merc as their newest member, decides to head into the shallows. They build up their supplies in Nenlast and then heads out. After only two days in the shallows the company is attacked by a black pudding. To defeat it quickly Al uses his breath weapon to blow it up. This causes a cave in and almost kills the party. Alas poor Dumador was not so lucky, as Max was digging through the rubble he felt a “squish” and simple said “Ew, dwarf.” The remains of Dumador were buried and the party tried to rest after all the rest were dug out. The luck of Avandra was not on their side as they were attacked, the battle was long and difficult for the exhausted and beat-up party but they were able to defeat their attackers. Then Sora now the avatar of Vecna, thanks to the bone and the deal made between them, showed up and activated the suppressed vampire genes of Xeria. With Sora-Vecna’s power over undeath she was able to spread vampirism through the party transforming all but Keira, Max, and Merc. Mikal was the only lucky one of the group transformed, for all his years of service to Corelleon his body was vaporized and his soul ascended to Arvandor. As his final gift, Corelleon, teleported Mikals’ only surviving friends to Winterhaven. Max fell into a catatonic state in self-pity over his failure and Keira and Merc head off to Fallcrest. The Company of the Bloody Boulder was disbanded.

Almost two years later. Keira is search for Max since he left walking and was never heard from again. On one of these expeditions she was hired as a guard for a dwarven trader by the name of Traevus. On route to Fallcrest they were attacked by goblins and a small box stolen by a necromancer by the name of Malareth. While Keira was easily able to dispatch the weak golbins she realized that she might not be able to take their base by herself and headed to Fallcrest to gather some allies to raid the goblinoid base. She met two young men a shadar-kai assassin by the name of Morlax and a dragonborn paladin named Vengorax. They entered the lair and soon discovered that the cave was a temple to Baphomet from the ancient Minotaur kingdom that once ruled the Nentir Vale. Morlax easily strangled Malareth to death while the other two killed his undead minions. The box was lying open and inside was a black skull that was being used as a focus for necrotic magic. Before the party left they stumbled on a quartet of shrines dedicated to Bahamet, Erathis, Moradin, and Pelor. The only problem was that a fledgling white dragon was using it as a lair. Unfortunately negotiations failed and they were attacked, fortunately though Morlax was able to shadow jaunt onto the dragons back and strangle him to death with a ten foot chain he had randomly found in the dungeon.

When they got back to Fallcrest they confront Traevus about the skull and he informed them that he was on his way to the Keep on the Shadowfell to have it destroyed by some high priests of Pelor. The group escorted him to Winterhaven were they were able to get some help from Valthrun who offered the assistance of his young apprentice Libra Omegus a young male human mage, who was in fact a female changeling. They also meet up with Clarana at the temple to the Raven Queen who decided she would join them as she was also searching for Max. They arrived at the Keep and went down to the ritual chamber used by Kalarel. They were confronted by two black robed figures who revealed themselves as Sora-Vecna and Mab’rauk. Traevus gave them the skull and when Clarana tried to stop them Mab’rauk killed her with a single thrust of his blade. Sora-Vecna tells Keira where to find Max. Then all three of them escaped through the portal to the shadowfell. As Morlax holds the body of Clarana she turns into many black raven feathers.

The party went back to the temple to inform them of the loss of Clarana. Nemus decides to join them in their quest for Max and they headed off towards Fallcrest to begin their search. As dusk began to set in fog rolled across the road and they discovered that they had wandered onto the endless road. After many days walking they discovered a tower that housed temples similar to the ones form the Minotaur ruins. While watching the horses Vengorax hears a goblin talking to a grave. Vengorax was slightly confused with this as the goblin kept trying to tell the corpse that it was time to go and find the others. At this point, the goblin and Vengorax were attacked and being unable to let the goblin die the thing in the grave came out and killed the attackers. The undead creature identified himself as Max and the goblin as Splug. They others arrived and Morlax told Max about the happenings in Mistwatch. They party agreed to remove the problems of Mistwatch head out and discovered the next morning that they were back on the prime material plane. Max then discovered that his bag of holding was stolen but it was too late to go back and get it. The Company of the Bloody Boulder was reformed.

When they arrived at Mistwatch, Morlax disappeared. They eventually found a shanty pub name The Sink and met a group of adventurers who were also trying to find a cure for the plague and undead problem. The adventuring party informed them that they believed it was a necromancer that was causing all the problems. Under that assumption, the next day the party went searching for a necromancer. One of the adventures a goliath blackguard of the Raven Queen by the name of Eglath went with them. The company eventually got separated and Max ended up alone in the middle of the docks surrounded by the sounds of moaning undead when all of a sudden he was attack from behind by an attack that would have killed a living person. Before he went down he got a good look at the attacker it was the mage of the adventuring party.

When Max was found he was stripped of all his weapons by the party’s thief. Max and co. went to back to The Sink to confront the other adventuring band when none other them Mab’rauk and his apprentice (the mage from the other adventuring party) walked through the door. A heated battle enfolded that almost destroyed the pub but after Mab’rauk’s apprentice was slain by Splug he escaped laughing at the company. By this time the leader of the other party arrived to help save the pub only to find his mage shanked. Max and he came to terms as he revealed that his band was members of the Disciples of Vengeance.

The next morning the company set out for the docks were they met Captain Cara who was trying to handle a mutiny at the same time an attack was happening by a horde of zombies. The company saved her but the ship was lost in repayment she told them some important information about the lord of the village Cadmus Zaspar. They head out to the home of the midwife that delivered Zaspar’s baby who had gone insane shortly afterwards. At her home they were attacked by an insane cleric of the Chained God and after he was defeated they were escorted to Lord Zaspar himself. He thanked the company for their hard work and the removal of the horrible sect from his village. Then he asked them to kill the Shadar-kai that was keeping the fair citizen of his village from fleeing. Though they did not believe him they went out to find a way to defeat this man. Father Tomas, the locale priest, was the solution. He took them down to the crypt of the first Lord Zaspar and found his Sunsword.

The company then went back to Lord Zaspar and demanded his surrender. Lord Zaspar laughed at them then summoned a dozen guards to attack while he threw spells at the adventures. Morlax snuck up behind Zaspar but was unable to garrote him. When the company was beginning to gain the upperhand some of the guards began to run at this point Mab’rauk step out of a trap door and killed the cowards. Zaspar tried to dominate Max but fumbled a word and instead the spell backfired and he became a vegtable as he dominated himself. With Zaspar useless Mab’rauk summoned the baby that looked like a 5 year old kid and teleported away. Out of mercy Morlax strangled Lord Zaspar to death while Vengorax and the other finished off the remaining guards. At this point the other guards tried to break though the sealed doors and Li quickly transformed into Lord Zaspar. When the guards finally get the doors open Li, as Zaspar, informed them that the guards tried to assassinate him and that the company had saved his life (the corpes of the real Zaspar was quickly removed). Li, now the new Lord Zaspar, along with the rest of the company spent the next three months rebuilding Mistwatch.